“Ms. Le Guin’s brilliance lies beyond nomenclature. Few writers have been so conscientious of the ways that societies are defined by the nuances and omissions of their language … This delightful book, inquisitive and stroppily opinionated in equal measure, assembles stray pieces from her recent adventures in blogging. Despite her reservations with the hideous word ‘blog’—which sounds like it should refer to ‘an obstruction in the nasal passage’—she takes to the digressive form with ease, ruminating on the value of literary awards, the Great American Novel (her pick may surprise you), the ‘existential situation’ of old age and her outsize love for a newly adopted black-and-white cat called Pard. In even these miscellanies, composed in her off hours, the sentences are perfectly balanced and the language chosen with care. After all, she writes, ‘Words are my matter—my stuff.’ And it’s through their infinite arrangements, ‘the endless changes and complexities of their interrelationships,’ that Ms. Le Guin’s extraordinary imaginary worlds have been built and shared.”
–Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2017
Read more reviews of No Time To Spare here
Read more of Sam Sacks’ reviews here
